


The Firmament

by IcarusDive



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 10:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10851783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcarusDive/pseuds/IcarusDive
Summary: "And for that, he needed to battle and win against his own storm to finally deserve the skies again."Yuuri skates to his FS one last time before he retires.





	The Firmament

**Author's Note:**

> hI i actually wrote this while the anime was still airing (it was around episode 9 i guess) so i really had no clue about the GPF's results. and i kind of predicted Yuuri's quad flip on his last FS, but it wasnt that much of a predict really
> 
> not beta'd and my english kind of sucks aaaaaaaa

The Grand Prix Final. The moment everyone was waiting for. No, perhaps…

Perhaps that was the moment _Yuuri Katsuki_ dreamt so much about. This was his last presentation, his last free program just before his eminent retirement. He would skate for the last time to the song composed to him and him only. This song did not belong to anyone else but him, and nobody had the stamina to complete this program but him. The program had been choreographed by no one other than his lifelong idol, the greatest figure skater ever: Viktor Nikiforov.

Viktor. 16 years old and already a figure skating star. 27 years old, won five consecutive gold medals at the Grand Prix Finals and many other European championships… Truly a monster on ice. Viktor, as his name suggests, was born to be victorious, indeed.

But Yuuri… Oh, poor Yuuri. Seeing his idol on TV made him feel so distant from his dream of being a champion himself. Yet, he still chose figure skating as his career, becoming a professional, but never too great of a skater to be admired. Until now. Eyes from all over the world were now locked on him.

 However, only one specific pair of eyes mattered to Yuuri. A pair of eyes as blue as the sky after the storm, cold as the breeze that herded the clouds to beyond the horizon, but hot and intense as the flames of a candle. They were beautiful. They were perfect. Eyes that monitored and memorized every single fluid move from the young Japanese man.

Yuuri breathed; his vision blurred, naked, without glasses or contacts. He liked to skate that way, blind. He closed his eyelids. He knew the program by heart. He knew the song by heart. Yuuri opened his eyes again and saw Viktor, tense as always. Yes, he is looking at you. He will not dare take his eyes from you.

He prepared himself. Took a deep breath.

And so, the song begins.

It is a song about his life. About no one but himself, actually. It starts with the piano’s arpeggios. Lonely arpeggios, even lost. Yet, they keep on ascending repeatedly. Yuuri takes his hands to his neck and lets them slip down over his nervous chest. He opens his arms and starts moving.

His expression does not change. Half-lidded eyes and fluid, slow movements. He is tired, alone and lost in the piano notes. He spins on the ice and tries to pay attention to his body, as if no one was watching him. The arpeggios begin to change within small variations of the melody. Yuuri is fast and captivates the audience with the synchrony between his body and the song.

Ah, the percussion comes in with the strings. This is when Viktor appears in Yuuri’s life. Leaning forward against the edge of the ice ring, Viktor undressed him with his eyes. And beneath those clothes, he could clearly see a body wanting to present itself. Or rather… tell its story. The arpeggios keep on, but they are getting more precise? They seem to dance with the rhythm established by the percussion. The piano sounds confident enough to even wander away from the central melody and decorate itself over a fix percussive base.

The young man flew over the ice like a heron over the lake’s water mirror. How long have you been hiding your beauty, Yuuri? How long have you been drowning this heron in the sea of your own tears? Only you haven’t noticed how beautiful you are.

The Russian would always hug him when he needed, shower him with kisses on days sadness would overthrow him, hold his face between his delicate hands when anxiety crushed him from the inside. Viktor would always be his support when Yuuri’s storms threatened to devour himself. But…

What would he do if Viktor wasn’t there?

The percussion disappears and a short silence leaves Yuuri to skate alone under the spotlights. He closes his eyes, finding himself immersed in his sea of solitude once again. The piano is lost, slow. The crowd holds its breath along with the skater, all of them slowly drowning in the shadows of abandonment. The heron sinks, but misses the sky.

The sky is cloudy, the blue cannot be seen. But that doesn’t mean the sky is not there. Yuuri swims back to the surface and the piano comes back to life, arpeggios regaining their rhythm. Viktor could be his crutch, but he would never be Yuuri’s vital strength. Viktor could encourage him all he wanted, but if Yuuri did not fight back himself, all of that would be lost and he would sink again someday. And for that, he needed to battle and win against his own storm to finally deserve the skies again.

“ _You are not weak_ ” were the words the Russian said to the Japanese, as they sat by the beach back at Hasetsu. And he really wasn’t. He had the strength and the stamina, but did not have a solid base. Viktor supported him as best as he could, but he would never be able to skate on the rink in Yuuri’s place. That, after all, was Yuuri’s career, and not his coach’s.

He beats his wings, flinging his arms open, and boosting himself up. He opens his eyes once more and presents himself before the Firmament. _I am here_. He is born again and emerges from the waters to take off. The wind blows, the percussion returns and the clouds gallop away. The presentation is already reaching its end and the crowd is already cheering for him, standing up to clap thunderously. Some were crying. They could finally see the heron flying again in the movements of the boy who dared belittle himself before a defeat. A boy who dared to think that he was worth less than the protagonist of the story of the heron that relearned to fly.

One last gift to the skies: his dedicatory to Viktor; Yuuri gathered the last of his strengths after a tiring program, closed his eyes and felt his body leap through the cold air of the stadium… The quad flip, Viktor Nikiforov’s signature move.

The percussion disappears for the last time and only the piano is left. After all, the merit belonged only to the piano, the melody.

Roaring claps echoed through the stadium. Flowers flew towards the boy. Yuuri was exhausted, but his eyes only looked for their pair on the edge of the ice rink. When they found them, his feet glided on the ice towards the coach, that already waited for him with open arms and-

Were those _tears_? Viktor rarely cried during programs.

The Russian man held his student with so much strength, to which he was answered with an equally strong, almost desperate, hug. And a kiss. Intense and pulsing like the beat of the heron’s wings, but complete and complex. Overflowing.

Love is not about completing one another. It’s about filling you with yourself until you feel complete, and until someone else overflows you. It is about contemplating your own reflex on the water mirror, on the ice, in the eyes of a lover and a friend.

And realize you are infinite.


End file.
